TRAINING OF NURSES

Evening Star, Issue 20321, 1 November 1929, Page 16

TRAINING OF NURSES

A BIG CONCESSION CHANCE FOR PRIVATE HOSPITALS [From Our I’arliauextjlhy lleporlik.] WELLINGTON, October 31. The privilege of being alloived to train probationers for the State nursing examinations, so that they may qualify as fully certificated nurses has long been sought by certain private hospitals in Now Zealand, notably the Mater Miserecordiae Catholic Hospital in Auckland, but has been declined owing to the fact that the facilities in such institutions were deemed inadequate for complete training. However, if the Nurses and Midwives’ Amendment Bill is passed by Parliament this season, this privilege will be conceded to certain institutions which come up to the required standard. _ The Bill makes provision wive re by the Nurses and Midwives’ Registration Board wil/ bp given authority to license any private hospital which, in the opinion of the board, is an institution in which the trainees may gam the necessary experience. -The Nurses’ and Midwives’ Board will bo the solo judge of the merits of the institutions applying for a license. The provisions of the Bill make a big concession which has been sought for several years, notably by the Mater Miserecordiae Hospital, becaus' the Catholic Church was desirous of training nuns as nurses. Up till the present time Catholic girls who wished to take the veil and become sisters in nursing religious orders have been compelled either to train as nurses in Australia or in other countries where _ Catholic hospitals are licensed as training in stitutions; or else to qualify as certm cated nurses in a New Zealand publi hospital before entering the religions order. Of course, the privilege will not bo restricted to demomnational private hospitals, because any largo private hspital which conies up to -the required standard may be licensed as a training institution at the discretion of the board However, the institut’onsmost likely to consider taking advantage of tliis amending legislation are the * Mater Miserecordiae Hospital, Auckland, the Lewisham fGatholicl Hospitals in Wellington and Christchurch, and the new St. George’s Hospital in Christchurch, which is con ducted by ’he Anglican sisters of the Order of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. None of these institutions at the piasent time is up to the standard j required of training institutions, because they do not include isolation blocks for' fever cases,, and do not take sufficient general cases for trainees to gain all-round experience. Such are the concessions proposed in the Bill, however, that--it is very prob able that efforts will bo made by some institutions to provide the requisite additional accommodation iuid facilities to o-ain the long-sought privilege if the Bilf passes. Theic will be no lowering of the standard of training because the Nurses and Midwives’ Board is sufficiently jealous of the high name of the nursing profession to refuse licens; to all save those institutions which conform in all particulars to the conditions and circumstances common to public hospitals.